Fife survey shows link between teen interaction and health

A survey of Fife high school pupils has revealed interesting information about group identifications and its effects on teenagers smoking, drinking and taking cannabis. The research found that teenagers who interact positively with their family, school and friends are far less likely to smoke, binge drink and use cannabis than peers who fail to identify with these social groups, according to research from the University of Dundee.

Debbie Clarke

A survey of Fife high school pupils has revealed interesting information about group identifications and its effects on teenagers smoking, drinking and taking cannabis.

The research found that teenagers who interact positively with their family, school and friends are far less likely to smoke, binge drink and use cannabis than peers who fail to identify with these social groups, according to research from the University of Dundee.

The research team, led by Psychology PhD student Kirsty Miller, surveyed more than 1000 high school pupils aged 13-17 from the Fife area.

The results showed that group identification protects against adverse health behaviour, with levels of identification with family, school and friendship groups predicting the likelihood of teenagers having smoked cigarettes, drank to excess or smoked cannabis in the past month.

The paper, published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, looks at adolescent substance use from the perspective of social identity. The researchers asked participants to rate the ties they felt to the three groups. The more groups they strongly identified with, the less likely they were to use tobacco, alcohol or cannabis.

The survey found that 14 per cent of respondents had smoked cigarettes, 31 per cent had binged on alcohol and 7.5 per cent had smoked cannabis in the previous month. The figures decreased from 24.1 per cent (for those who had zero identifications) to 8.8 per cent (for those who had three identifications) for smoking, 41.6 per cent to 25.6 per cent for drinking and 13 per cent to 2.7 per cent for cannabis.

Kirsty Miller said: “The greater the number of social groups the participant strongly identified with, the lower the odds of them participating in negative health behaviours. Those who identified with the friend group only had increased odds but identification with the family and school groups as well as friends predicted reduced odds of substance use.

“In contrast, merely having contact with these groups rather than identifying strongly with them increased the odds of participation in these behaviours.”

She added: “This highlights the importance of the subjective aspect of identifying with a group, rather than merely having contact with it.”